Phil ladles on the Max Factor and Joanne
and Suanne tell Lynn Hanna how they made The Human League an electro-pop
success. And everybody bitches behind one another's back...

Life,
states Phil Oakey, settling into an armchair in the tacky splendour of a
seedy hotel lounge, “has been a constant series of disappointments to me
ever since I joined the group.

“Let’s be
honest, I thought we’d do it with our first single. I thought ‘Being
Boiled’ would be Number One. Then ‘The Dignity Of Labour’ came out and I
thought, well, I know it’s a bit unusual, but it might just get
to Number One.”

“Then you
got us,” Suzanne says from the other side of the table. “And you got to
Number 12, then Number Three, twice. What more could you want?”

We knew
we were going to be a top group two years ago,” continues Philip, ignoring
this interruption. “Definetely. We’d got all the names trademarked so
people coulnd’t rush out and make T-shirts because we were going to be so
popular, instantly. Then we just sat around and waited for people to buy
the records.”

“And they
didn’t,” says Suzanne.

This time
around, the Indian summer of 1981 has seen a bright British electro-pop
explosion. Already stirring up the stagnant charts is the serene teen-pop
of Depeche Mode and the electro-glide of Soft Cell. Still waiting on the
sidelines are Pete Shelley’s fresh surge of homosapian love, the smoother
electro-glide of Thomas Leer’s ‘Four Movements’, the sensual, cerebral
dancefloor funk celebration and stimulation that is the very wonderful
Heaven 17.

Pushing
to the top of the chart pile, setting the scene with ‘The Sound Of The
Crowd’ for the insuating success of ‘Love Action’ is the hopeful
hit-machine of the regenerated Human League.

And all
this after the old League split up last year into the BEF/Heaven 17
formation and Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright were left holding the name, the
slides and the haircut.

“I
thought then we might easily blow it completely,” admits Phil. “I agreed
with everyone else. I thought we were the ones without the talent as well.
But it’s possible to have too much talent. And worse, it’s possible to
have too much talent and think you have even more talent than that.

“I think
if we’ve got anything, it’s the fact that we can spot the things that
we’re bad at. We’ve always needed someone like Ian Burden; ‘The Sound Of
The Crowd’ is his song. I’m quite good on words and tunes, but we’ve never
had anyone who was really good at rhythms and basslines.

“Jo
Callis fits in anywhere he possibly can – if you don’t stop him. He’s the
world’s most energetic human being. The problem is to shut him up really.
He doesn’t stop from when he wakes up to when he goes to sleep, which is
about five in the morning. He can do anything. He’s the best keyboard
player in the group, which is quite good whnen you consider he’s not a
keyboard player. No-one who can play with thw hands has ever been in our
studio before. He’s great is Jo. I’m glad he’s not here.

It would
be really nice if we needed anything to have someone in the group who
could do it. I think we’ve just about got it, now, one of everything.”

Now we
are six

I catch
up with Jo Callis and Ian Burden in the civilised setting of a Chelsea
pub, opposite the small studio where the rest of The Human League are
supervising the mixing of a backing track for a forthcoming TV slot. Jo is
small, pale, bouncy and ferret-faced with an endaring habit of punctuating
his conversation by chuckling happily to himself. In stark contrast, Ian
is tall, dark, slowmoving and soft-spoken. By coincidence, both spent
their childhood moving round the country with fathers who were in the RAF.

Ina,
whose girlfriend shared a house with Phil Oakey in Sheffield, joined the
League in the week that Phil and Adrian spent recruiting new members
between the old splitting and setting out on a European tour to fulfil
contractual obligations. Jo, who finally ended up in Edinburgh, has
followed a more circuitous route through The Rezillos, Shake and early
Scottish pop-funk exponents Boots For Dancing.

Jo’s own
league connection came through a common manager in Fast Product’s boss Bob
last and was strengthened by a keen shared interest in ‘60s childhood
esoterica with League slide supreme Adrian Wright.

“When I
met him, the first thing he did was open his wallet and show me two
Thunderbirds bubblegum cards with the words of this song he’d written.
Three years later we finished it.”

Jo’s past
pop connections and Ian’s rhythm sensibilities have consolidated the
League’s new commercialism and both now form an integral part of the
complicated songwriting permutations.

“You’re
talking to the Nile and Rodgers of The Human league here,” asserts Jo
jovially.

“Listening to the old human League was like listening to electronic music,
but now when I hear a Human League record, it sounds like a pop record
that just happens to have all been done on synthesizers and
electronically.

“I think
what’s good about The Human League compared to Depeche Mode or Soft Cell,
is that they’re just electronic bands who are fashionable at the moment.
With The Human League, obviously there is the fashion and image thing, but
I think that at any stage in their development, they’ve never been
dependent on any current trend. In many respects it’s taken all these
other groups three years to catch up with them.”

How do
you all get on as a group?

“It’s
horrendous, like a love/hate relationship. This is defientely the
strangest combination of people I’ve ever worked with. It’s like people
have been picked up on the way, ending up with this bizarre conclusion.
Well, it’s not the conclusion, maybe in two years Suzanne will be the lead
singer or something.”

“Everyone’s different,” adds Ian. “No little alliances ever form.”

“Part of
The Human League concept is that no one knows what everyone else is doing
at any given point in time,” says Jo. “It’s that random element that adds
the vital spark.”

By now
the story of how Phil Oakey recruited Joanne and Suzanne in a Sheffield
disco is already semi-legendary in the hallowed annals of The Human League
story.

“He
wanted a tall black singer and he got two short white girls who couldn’t
sing,” explains Suzanne.

Pausing
only to take a month off school where both were studying for four A-levels
each, the girls set off on tour and embarked on a pop career.

“Well,
we’d bought tickets to go and see them in Doncaster, I mean we’d got
‘Travelogue’ and the singles on tape.”

Ask what
they feel they add to the group and Joanne replies frankly, “Glamour.
Definetely glamour; stuff that gives it a more saleable quality. We’re
here to sell it.”

On the
other hand both are lively, forthright 18-year olds with a dry, canny
Yorkshire wit, a sharp sense of humour and pronounced opinions on what
they like in pop.

“When we
went on tour we didn’t know anything about the music business, we were
still at school. We’ve been learning, picking up tips, listening to what
people say. It’s no good jumping in at he deep end and saying. ‘I think
this should go on the record’ when you don’t know anything about it. But
if we got an opinion, we’re not pushed out.”

What was
your idea in getting girls in, Phil?

“I think
women are going to take over almost everything at the end of the centuary.
I don’t think it’s a man’s world any more. For a little while it will be,
but it’s just about finished, don’t you think so?”

Joanne
and Suzanne were originally ardent Gary Numan fans who both dressed alike
in black, although they’ve since developed their own stage, mainly through
shopping second-hand stores.

“We’re
trying to be individual in the way we dress and dance says Joanne. “You
want people to know what you are.”

Joanne
stops suddenly.

“Am I
sounding like Steve Strange?”

“Everybody says you should dance the same, but we won’t. If we stood there

and did a
routine, it wouldn’t be ourselves.”

“I think
it works that anyone can do what they want really,” says Suzanne. “If
anyone comes in and says, ‘Oh no, you can’t, that’s not your role in the
group.”

“Everyone’s supposed to be an individual ,” states Joanne. That’s what
this group is, a set of individuals.”

We
are family

The Human
League are an exotic and incongruous spectacle in the tawdry afternoon
emptiness of the Bayswater hotel. The girls are in black, red and gold
clothes, colourful paint and powder, bright tights and precariously high
heels.

In their
midst Phil Oakey reclines in an armchair, resplendent in bronze
face-powder and black eye-liner, the haircut scraped severely back from
his forehead and wearing a dark, wide-lapelled suit that seems to have a
split in the seat of the trousers. Adrian Wright stands out by virtue of
the ordinariness of his appearance, sombre jacket, faded jeans, pointed
suede shoes and a calm, cynical manner that contrasts the mayhem created
by the other three members of the group who the hotel porter views from
time to time with some consternation.

We rejoin
the scene as Adrian and Joanne return to the circle around the coffee
table after posing for a photo-session.

“It must
have been the photos. We were doing steamy shower shots,” says Adrian,
slyly.

Philip
bitches back. “In your leather jacket and jeans?”

It’s
gratifying to see that the girls give as good as they get in the confusing
cut and thrust of The Human League’s conversation and the complex
internecine system of point-scoring where disagreement is de rigeur.

Philip is
at pains to point out, several times, the split lip he alleges he suffered
at the hands of Suzanne only this morning on the train from Sheffield,
although beneath the pure sheen of his lipstick no scar is visible.

“I hadn’t
done anything,” he complains in an aggrieved voice.

“You
did,” says Joanne. “You tried to push her through a window.”

“That was
after. At some stage I thought, ‘I’ve got to fight back.”

“I
decided that after last December when she hit me the first time,” Adrian
observes with morose Yorkshire satisfaction to no-one in particular.

“Ooh,
Adrian,”
pouts Suzanne reproachfully.

“It’s a
good job me and Adrian are nice and quiet to calm these two down, “ Joanne
confides.

“You
quiet, don’t give me your innocent look,” cries Suzanne.

Joanne
smiles serenely.

The same
problems arise at many points during the afternoon’s discussion. While
Philip or Adrian are expounding pet theories, the girls will make covert
winding-up gestures or pull bored faces behind the boys’ backs, gazing at
the ceiling with feigned innocence whenever a suspicious glance flickers
their way.

Like any
group who’ve transcended a cult following, The Human League have incurred
some wrath in Sheffield, it seems, from faithful followers who are now
forced to share a private appreciation with a wider public.

Suzanne:
“The only reason they think we’ve gone commercial is because there’s two
girls joining and it’s, “They’ve gone like Bucks Fizz, ‘that’s what
they’re saying.”

Adrian:
“But even our commercial songs don’t sound as if they’re selling out, they
still sound like us. It’s not as if we’ve become The Acrhies all of a
sudden.”

Suzanne:
“No, but we’re in the same league as them now.”

Adrain:
“No, we’re not. We’re just bracketed that way.”

Philip:
“I hope we are.”

Adrian:
“I’d rather be like Abba.”

Joanne:
“What’s the difference?”

Adrian:
“There’s a lot of difference. Abba are very good at writing songs. There’s
hit records and there’s wonderful hit records. I’d rather be compared with
Abba.”

Philip:
“We went out to dinner with a couple of them in Sheffield last week. They
were really nice.”

Joanne:
“Just like us.”

Philip:
“Well, they weren’t just like us. They were really nice. Just like me.”

We
have the technology

Although
Philip will attribute the commercial disappointments of the old League to
the fact that the group had a pariah, an unlucky symbol – “It was Martin,
he breaks lightbulbs by walking near them and synthesizers and hi-fis.
He’s got the jinx. Pity really, ‘cos he’s very talented” – one of the
factors in the new League’s success is undoubtedly their collaboration
with Martin Rushent and the hi-tech opportunities of his rural Berkshire
studios.

“It’s
difficult to tell what difference it made. Probably a great deal. He’s
brilliant at what he does.”

“He’s a
master of his equipment,” adds Adrian.

“And a
lot of the old Human League records did sound like a lot of blokes in a
eight-track studio in Sheffield.”

“It’s his
attitude,” says Philip. “A lot of people I’ve worked with won’t take any
little dodges to get around something and make it easier. If something
could be played by hand, they’d say, “Keep doing it, you’ll do it
eventually,’ and you’d end up wasting six hours, whereas Martin just feeds
it through the computer. At every stage, he always goes for the easiest
way of getting the best idea down.”

Despite
the fact the League fight shy of revealing future plans for fear of
encouraging grandiose ideas that may then fall flat, at some stage they
plan to release an instrumental LP and, of course, more of their
colour-coded pop records.

“Red for
poseurs,” says Suzanne.

“For
Spandy types,” Joanne explains.

“And for
blue Abba fans,” finishes Philip.

The Human
League are determined not to succumb to the temptation of talking about
Heaven 17 – “It’s like when you fall out of love with a boyfriend and you
slate him to everyone because you’ve been so close,” says Joanne. “It’s
really trivial. It shouldn’t happen.”

However,
it’s obvious that comparisons rankle.

“There’s
the swing against us, which at the moment is being shown in Heaven 17
reviews,” asserts Philip. “There’s this thing about how we’re not
divergent and that we’re only writing pop songs which makes us less
worthy. That annoys me. We’re writing pop songs because we want to and at
the moment we can shelve everything else. I don’t think we’re selling out
because that’s part of what we want to do. At the moment it makes a lot of
sense to write the best pop songs we can.

“When we
were doing the album, we considered everything as a single, because that’s
the sort of LP we like, the Blondie LPs and Michael Jackson. I’ll buy an
album with five singles on it because those are the ones I want to hear.

“In the
long term, so long as you’re writing good songs, you’ve got it made. It
doesn’t matter what you look like, someone will sing them somewhere,
someone will want to hear them. I think that’s really what it’s all
about.”